Talk:SpongeBob SquarePants

Semi-protected edit request on 16 October 2014

I may ask that you please fix the photos of the voice actors as shown on the page as some are blank. Thank you, ~ Editor270 Editor270 (talk) 05:14, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Not done: Not so simple as that. Need to find images that are not copyrighted and fall under the Wikipedia:Image use policy. I did a quick search on Wikimedia for the missing actors and don't see any image for them, not sure where to go from there. Cannolis (talk) 08:46, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

You can try Flickr. I've already contacted a few people on that site, who have photos of these actors, but I haven't heard back from them. I've had success in acquiring rights to images through this method before, and it's possible that in this case, the photographers simply haven't seen my message (not all of them have been active lately). I might try some more later, or you can feel free to take a shot at it yourself. --Jpcase (talk) 16:04, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Fantastic news! I've been in correspondence with someone on Flickr, who has agreed to let us use at least one of her photos of Mr. Lawrence. She seems very happy to help us out and might (not sure yet) let us use multiple images of him. I'll upload something as soon as we've worked out the details. Oh, and I've just noticed that she also has images of Bill Fagerbakke and Rodger Bumpass, so it may be that we get the whole image-box illustrated by the end of the week. Here's to hoping anyway. :) --Jpcase (talk) 04:13, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Michelle Nakashima is amazing! Everyone needs to know that! She's agreed to let us use any of her photos of the SpongeBob voice cast, and she has quite a collection. I've gone ahead and added photos of each missing actor, but she has several of Mr. Lawrence that we could choose from and a few different options for Rodger Bumpass. I really like Mr. Lawrence's expression in the photo that I uploaded, but I may swap that one out for something a little higher quality. Unfortunately, she only has one of Bill Fagerbakke (well, and a couple showing him to the side of other actors), but I've searched high-and-low for images of him, both on Flickr and off Flickr - Ms. Nakashima's photos are the only ones even available. Gladly, the one that she has is pretty good, even though the image quality seems somewhat lower than the ones for Kenny, Brown, and Carolyn Lawrence.

I've already uploaded two or three photos of Mr. Lawrence to the Commons and will upload some more of him, as well as Rodger Bumpass, soon. Everyone take a look and let me know which photos you want to use. :) --Jpcase (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, mostly everything is up. There's one more image of Rodger Bumpass that I'm waiting on, but we have four images of Mr. Lawrence, two of Bumpass, three of Fagerbakke (again, there's only one that really focuses on him, but two others that have him to the side), and even four new photos of Tom Kenny. You can check them out on the Commons or see the Lawrence, Bumpass, and Fagerbakke photos in their respective articles (I've added them all). Let me know if you would prefer to use a different pic for any of these actors in this article. --Jpcase (talk) 05:25, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I've uploaded that last image of Rodger Bumpass to the Commons and to his Wikipedia page. --Jpcase (talk) 05:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Female Alligator named Al - What's the Source for This?

The information that SpongeBob's voice originated with a female alligator character named Al in Rocko's Modern Life is sourced with the People Speak Radio interview between Kenny and Basima Farhat. I've listened through that interview multiple times and, although Kenny does mention SpongeBob's voice originating with a minor character on Rocko, he never specifies that this character was a female alligator named Al. I went through the history and saw that Mediran added this information (and its source) in 2013. Mediran, do you remember where you actually heard about the character being a female alligator named Al? Alternatively, does anyone else know of a reliable source that contains this information? --Jpcase (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Whoa. I can't remember adding that information. Can you please direct me to that revision I supposedly made? Anyway, I searched the SpongeBob character article and saw that it had that information like years ago. Even before I created this account and got into WP. See this revision (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?&oldid=435526926) dated 2011 I randomly picked. So basically, I didn't make/add that info. That came from the other article. — Mediran [talk] 14:11, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to this edit (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SpongeBob_SquarePants&diff=556230472&oldid=556224908) on May 22, 2013. But don't worry - I wasn't trying to be accusatory. I'm just trying to figure out where the info originated, so that it can be corrected. Thanks for pointing me to that version of the SpongeBob SquarePants (character) article. I did a little more digging and discovered that the info was added a few months prior to that revision by a user named Yojunemeow - he/she hasn't been active in several years and only ever made a few edits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Yojunemeow). A review of those edits reveals them to have been less than constructive - Fancruft, if not intentional vandalism. It very well may be that the character was a female alligator named Al, but I highly suspect that reliable sources don't exist to prove this. I'll go ahead and remove the statement from both articles. I really appreciate your help. :) --Jpcase (talk) 16:41, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 November 2014

Jeffreypatterson (talk) 04:46, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• NOT DONE no request made - McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 04:57, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 November 2014

67.167.102.217 (talk) 18:21, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 18:59, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Bikini Atoll location

The "Setting" section currently reads, "Much of the series' events take place in Bikini Bottom, an underwater city located in the Pacific Ocean beneath the real life tropical isle of Bikini Atoll. Much of this is supported within the context of the episodes themselves. However, despite implications of the city's location, as well as analogies to real life, Hillenburg has stated that he wishes to leave the city isolated from the real world." Does anyone know how the setting is implied by actual episodes? Or what these "analogies to real life" are supposed to be? I can't actually recall any moment from the series when the real world location of Bikini Bottom was disclosed or even hinted at. --Jpcase (talk) 18:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay. I've traced the page history back to a time when this statement was cited with two sources - SpongeBob Exposed (which is still being used, but doesn't actually mention "implications of the city's location", "analogies to real life", or even "Bikini Atoll") and this webpage [1] (which doesn't mention hints being given in the series itself, but does mention vague hints being given in the film. No specific mention of Bikini Atoll though.) The second reference states that Hillenburg has wanted "to leave the location of Bikini Bottom to the peoples imagination." Meanwhile, although SpongeBob Exposed does contain a quote from Hillenburg about the characters being "isolated from the real world", it's within the context of not wanting to do pop-culture jokes - the quote has nothing to do with the location of Bikini Bottom. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to replace SpongeBob Exposed with the second reference in the current version of that sentence, but this is just a temporary measure. I'll do a little more research soon, to figure out why the second reference was removed and whether it meets RS criteria. --Jpcase (talk) 00:19, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Alright, so Mediran removed this reference back in May 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SpongeBob_SquarePants&diff=556357714&oldid=556355572), under the basis that it's a fan site. Closer inspection of the website reveals that it is indeed a fansite (as stated in the fine print at the bottom). No further information seems to be provided about who runs the website, so it seems safe to assume that it doesn't meet RS criteria. I'll go ahead and remove the reference (and the sentence that it is being used to support) from the article. --Jpcase (talk) 18:09, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Since nothing is ever stated about Bikini Bottom's location in the series itself (even the above-mentioned fansite, which says that subtle hints are given in the film, doesn't connect those hints to any specific location), and since Hillenburg has never (as far as I know) specified the city's location, I don't think that we should be so definitive about Bikini Bottom being located under Bikini Atoll. It's certainly notable that two reliable sources have provided a specific location for Bikini Bottom, but context ought to be provided for where this information is coming from. I'll rewrite the sentence. Let me know if any of you are aware of a stronger reference though. --Jpcase (talk) 20:49, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Hmm...so the article is describing Bikini Atoll as a "tropical isle", as does the QSRmagazine reference, [2] but an atoll is essentially a coral reef. A coral reef isn't an island is it? It seems to me that there are several islands in the area around Bikini Atoll, but that Bikini Atoll isn't an island itself. Maybe QSR meant to refer to Bikini Island, which is one of the islands in the atoll - whoever created the image in the "Setting" section seemed to be thinking along those lines. But neither of the refs actually mention this island by name. I'll go ahead and change "tropical isle" to "coral reef" and swap the photo out with one that doesn't box Bikini Island. --Jpcase (talk) 00:19, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI - This Cracked article also mentions Bikini Atoll. Again, this isn't enough to make any definitive statement about Bikini Bottom's location, but it may be worth adding this as third reference for the claim. The whole article could actually make for an interesting addition to the Legacy section (it talks about a popular "fan theory"). There's some dispute as to whether Cracked meets RS criteria - my personal view is that while it shouldn't be used as a news source, it's notable enough to be treated as a sort of self-published source. So in other words, while we would never use it as a source for facts, I feel that it would be appropriate to note that Cracked commented on a certain facet of the show. Oh, and while Cracked is usually pretty good with fact-checking, they do drop the ball every now and then (hence, why they shouldn't be used as a news source). Their claim that the Bikini Atoll location is "confirmed by the official Nickelodeon-written synopsis" is backed up with an IMDB plot summary written by a user named "Nickelodeon". Is this user an official representative for the studio? Eh, maybe. But there's no way to know that for sure. So I stand by my view that the location hasn't been out-right confirmed.

Anyways, I'm not going to add anything from Cracked without consensus, so somebody please comment! I want to get as many opinions on this as possible. :) --Jpcase (talk) 01:13, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The 2008 diff version shows that Bikini Bottom merged into this section (see AFD discussion) after this second peer review. It also shows that it has a lot of comprehensiveness, sourcing (including unreliable refs) and image issues, mainly with trivia and original research would put out of date. JJ98 (Talk) 04:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Award nominations

Mediran, Cyphoidbomb, or anyone else watching this page - could you weigh in on this? I realized that refs aren't being given for the show's award nominations, but instead, are only being given for wins. Since the show has received up to seventeen nominations for some of the awards that we're mentioning on this page, I feel that it would become incredibly unwieldy to add refs for all of these. I took a look at how The Simpsons handles this situation (since it's an FA) and noticed that they only specify how many times the show has won any given award. So, I've gone ahead and removed any mention of nominations from the article - nominations are of course, still mentioned in the separate "Awards and nominations" list. Does this sound like an okay thing to do? Since it's a fairly major change, I want to make sure that everyone is okay with it. --Jpcase (talk) 05:07, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hey Jpcase, as usual you are doing a very good and difficult job, and your notes are impeccable. I don't oppose the removal of nominations since what's most important are wins. Nominations tend to be more of a marketing win/win for a project, since they can still boast about the privilege of being included. Since we have another place to put this info (as you point out), it seems reasonable to shorten the article per your suggestion. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:14, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the input Cyphoidbomb. Thanks a lot for the kind words as well. It's a huge encouragement to know that people are appreciating my work. :) --Jpcase (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You are welcome. As I've probably said before, don't assume that nobody's watching, rather that if nobody complains, it's probably a good thing. No gripes is good news. :) I'm more of a gnome, myself, so as long as editors are doing a fine job of sculpting, I'm not likely to bother them unless something weird comes up. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Top 10 Irritating '90s Cartoon Characters

The article has had mention of SpongeBob ranking #4 on AskMen's list, "Top 10 Irritating '90s Cartoon Characters". When I click on the link (here's the url - [3]), it just takes me to what appears to be the AskMen homepage, although when I search the website for the list's title, I do get results - not for the list itself, but for other lists that upon clicking and going to their respective pages, display the "Irritating Cartoons" list as a link (with a picture and everything!) But when I click on this link, I just get taken back to the AskMen homepage again. :( I've actually been able to find this list transcribed on a blog, but I know that we can't use that.

None of you would have any idea how to access this article, would you? There's one archived copy, but it just does the same thing - takes me to the homepage. I'd really like to keep this one, since it provides balance between positive and negative perspectives of the character, but I've gone ahead and removed it from the article, since I doubt that there's any way to use it. Let me know if I'm wrong though! --Jpcase (talk) 07:45, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Journal articles by Jeffery P. Dennis

The article as written seems to suggest that Jeffery P. Dennis wrote his comments about SpongeBob in a journal article called "The Same Thing We Do Every Night: Signifying Same-Sex Desire in Television Cartoons". When one clicks on the link provided in the reference though, it leads to a journal article called "Queertoons" - this is also the name that Dennis himself used when he commented here a few months ago. I've done some digging around and found this page [4], which shows that "The Same Thing We Do Every Night" was published by the Journal of Popular Film and Television. Meanwhile, "Queertoons" was published by the online journal Soundscapes. Although it appears that the "The Same Thing We Do Every Night" discusses SpongeBob as well, the information that we are citing comes from '"Queertoons", so I'll make a fix. I'm not sure as of yet what the best course of action should be regarding the comments by Martin Goodman of Animation World Magazine - I think that he was discussing "The Same Thing We Do Every Night", and it doesn't seem that I can access that article without paying for it. I'll leave another note after looking further into this. --Jpcase (talk) 02:40, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Jpcase Any chance the Refdesk could be of assistance to get you behind the paywall? Or rather, to get the information that's behind the paywall? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Good thinking! I don't know if the reference desk itself would be the place to ask about this, but the Resource Exchange should be able to help. I actually hadn't been aware of this section of Wikipedia until very recently and probably would have forgotten to ask there. Thanks for the reminder! :) --Jpcase (talk) 03:12, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Got it! I'll try to take care of this tomorrow, or at least within the next few days. Thanks again Cyphoidbomb! --Jpcase (talk) 03:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

mmkay...so the articles appear to be roughly the same, but with a few differences here and there. I guess that Dennis adapted "Queertoons" from "The Same Thing We Do Every Night" and made a few minor alterations - "Same Thing" is a little longer and upon further inspection, I can confirm that it is the only one mentioned in the AWM article, so that's why I'm assuming that it's the original. The best approach that I can think of would be to continue using "Queertoons" in the text of the article and as the reference for Dennis' comments, since readers can access that article without paying for it. After Goodman's comments though, we can provide a footnote that mentions "The Same Thing We Do Every Night". --Jpcase (talk) 18:06, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

MiszaBot I

Is anyone attached to the automatic archiving for this page? I prefer archiving manually, so as to keep conversations around until we're definitely done with them. There are a few from earlier in the year that have been archived, even though they still contain relevant information. Let me know if anyone wants to keep the MiszaBot I. Otherwise, I'll disable it. --Jpcase (talk) 02:10, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Lowercase sigmabot III currently archives since MiszaBot is not active. You can use with OneClickArchiver to archive some of the discussions if it gets to slow. JJ98 (Talk) 04:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

When SpongeBob Became #1 (continued)

Just leaving a note for myself that the current version of the article has no mention of when the show first reached #1 in the ratings. An earlier version of the article suggested that this happened during the second quarter of 2002, but it appears that this information was inaccurate. The article was then corrected to say that it happened during the fourth quarter of 2001, but AussieLegend removed this statement from the article (see this edit - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SpongeBob_SquarePants&diff=next&oldid=624451139]) on the basis that it was supported by an unreliable source (nickandmore.com). If at all possible, we should make sure to find a source for this, as I feel that it's pretty much the most important fact that we could mention in the "Ratings" section of the article.

Also, there had been some discussion earlier about the clarity of ratings - I agree that these sort of ratings aren't very easily understood (and have no idea what they mean myself). Some sort of explanation should probably be worked into the article. --Jpcase (talk) 02:27, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Not a bad removal. Although it's clear that SpongeBob did reach #1 for its demo, Nickandmore is just parroting a Nickelodeon press release, which would probably not be sufficient, since they are a primary source. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:58, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know - an article shouldn't be based entirely on primary sources, but there's no rule against using them to supplement an article. Interviews are essentially primary sources after all, and quite a bit of info in this article is coming from interviews with Hillenburg and Kenny. I think if we could find the press release in a more reliable source than Nickandmore, then we could probably use it for this fact. --Jpcase (talk) 23:27, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi JP: potentially controversial statements about when the series went "#1" should not come from the primary sources, since the primary sources have a clear incentive to inflate the information or to skew it in such a way as to obfuscate the relevance. I mean, couldn't there be subtle wordplay behind the claim "Ranks as Number-One Net for First Quarter '02"? I don't know firsthand, and I haven't quite done the research, but being circumspect is the better approach. Is "net" the more meaningful value? Do they mean #1 for boys 2-11? #1 for girls 4-6? When writing about churches and controversial authors, for instance, we would treat their self-reported congregation stats and book sales values with extreme skepticism. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:47, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

You make a good point. Okay - I'll make sure not to add anything about this unless I can find a third party source. --Jpcase (talk) 00:10, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Ukrainian controversy

Toward the beginning of the year, a Ukrainian user, Volodymyr D-k, claimed that it was members of a "marginal sect", who wanted to see SpongeBob and the other shows banned. According to Volodymyr, the Ukrainian National Expert Commission for Protecting Public Morality held a "session" about the issue, but ruled against the sect. Looking at the two sources currently used for this part of the article reveals that the controversy did indeed originate with an outside group - a "fringe" Catholic website (as described by the Wall Street Journal), called Family Under the Protection of the Holy Virgin. However, there's a whole variety of other sources not currently being used in the article, that provide (seemingly) different takes on the issue. I'm going to add links to them all here, so that I can investigate further at a later time.

Articles that are currently being used as references

• The Wall Street Journal [5]
• Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) [6]

Other articles

• EITB [7]
• The FW [8]
• Gather [9]
• Seattle Gay News [10]
• Yahoo! News [11]
• Daily Mail [12]

--Jpcase (talk) 03:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Ugh. This is really confusing. Some of these other sources mention a "study" that was apparently released by the Commission, but this study is quoted as saying things that The Wall Street Journal has attributed to Family Under the Protection of the Holy Virgin. All of the criticism that the Commission has supposedly directed toward SpongeBob seems to have come from this study - however, the claim that the study comes from the Commission appears to me to be faulty. What to do, what to do...I'm inclined to give precedence to The Wall Street Journal and to treat the criticism of SpongeBob as stemming solely from the "fringe" Catholic group. For those who would like to see this researched in more depth though, the enigmatic "study" originally stemmed from the Ukrainian newspaper Ukraínskaya Pravda. I can't read Ukrainian, so that's a dead end for me. Hmm...there's probably a way to find editors who know Ukrainian................ --Jpcase (talk) 23:14, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Hm, while I agree on using better sources, it should be noted that the article shouldn't give undue weight to it. In my opinion, one or two lines is enough coverage on it. Gabriel Yuji (talk) 01:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

No worries - the current version of the article only has three sentences on this, and I don't plan an expansion. I'll just rephrase things. By the way, I've opened a discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language to see if anyone can help in finding the Ukrainian newspaper article. Not sure if that's the best place to ask about this, but it's the only place that I can think of. --Jpcase (talk) 02:10, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so someone at the Language Reference Desk was able to dig up these articles: [13][14][15][16]. No translation yet though - I'll see if I can find someone to help out. Unless anyone here can read Ukrainian? A full translation probably wouldn't be necessary; I basically just need to get the gist of what the articles say. --Jpcase (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Flanderization? - Problems with the criticism section

The section "Criticism of declining quality" reads:

"Early episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants, particularly those from the first three seasons, were praised for their wit, humor, and 'uncanny brilliance'. However, in the mid-2000s, around the airing of season four, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change. Some fans pointed to a shift in clever, well-constructed humor and likable charaters [sic] to what they perceived as an overemphasis on flanderization, zany antics, stale humor, cliché plotlines, and characters being abused and treated as black sheep for humor (partciularly [sic] Squidward and Plankton).

Ignoring the misspelling of "characters" and "particularly" I take special note of the term "Flanderization". For those unfamiliar it's a term from TV Tropes which is used to describe how a character is distilled from a more fully formed individual into a character of more singular traits, until said traits become the defining aspect of the character in question. It's named after the character Ned Flanders of The Simpsons of which the editors of TV Tropes believe to have undergone such a process.

Whether or not the characters meet that criteria of is irrelevant, as it is a term which would require the average Wikipedia user to have more than passing knowledge of a website unrelated to the article which they are reading (and Wikipedia in general).

I suggest we cull, or cut down the criticism section. Particularly everything after "Early episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants, particularly those from the first three seasons, were praised for their wit, humor, and 'uncanny brilliance'." as it would difficult to find notable, reliable sources claiming the show shifted from "clever, well-constructed humor" and "characters being abused and treated as black sheep for humor."

The section criticizing Paul Tibbit and saying that fans began to abandon the show (8 years after the perceived decline in quality I might add) reads like a disgruntled fan going out of their way to find the most negative quotes they from select DVD reviews to spin a narrative, but for what its worth it is sourced. Likewise, the paragraph also speculates that after the release of the film fans fled from the show en masse, causing ratings to erode. This is all supported by a single link, which I can only imagine was an opinion piece, but I have no way of knowing for sure, because the link is now broken. Doing a quick Google I found this archive of the page.

The original article itself offers no sources for where it gets its information, merely stating "According to a website devoted to 'SpongeBob,' many fans felt the cartoon 'jumped the shark' after the release of the movie based on the show in 2004." and "'Fans also began to turn away from the series, and online fan sites became deserted,' according to spongebob.wikia.com. 'Although the show is still criticized, some SpongeBob fans believe it could be making a comeback.'"

Anyway, if someone wants to rewrite the criticism section so that it's up to Wikipedia standards, with proper sources and all, by all means, feel free. But if this is what how it's going to look otherwise, I say we just cut it and be done with it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.155.110.136 (talk) 12:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Last Season

I wish the series of SpongeBob SquarePants can be ended by 2019! I don't want to see it again!